


Tear Down That City, Word by Word

by foursweaterests



Category: Castle
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 21:07:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foursweaterests/pseuds/foursweaterests
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time to Don Juan it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tear Down That City, Word by Word

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mousagetes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousagetes/gifts).



> Thank you to Scott for reading this the NIGHT before it was due. As always, I owe you big.

For as long as he could remember, Rick loved words. He loved the way his mother said them, layered across her tongue like too many caramels at once, and the way she got thousands of people to listen to her every night.

He knew he probably became a writer for his mother’s attention. He didn’t even need the therapist Gina tried to push him into getting; as she so kindly pointed out, his books were his own thinly-disguised escapist fantasies. She had a sharp tongue, but-

“Mr. Castle?”

Rick shook his head and smiled his most charming smile, the one Alexis called The Ladykiller. It wasn’t working on this particular reporter, but he had faith in it. She just needed more prolonged exposure. “I’m sorry, Ms. Morales. I drifted off for a minute. I’m working on my next book and I can’t figure out if the heroine should - no, never mind. I’m sure you don’t want to hear about that.”

She shifted in her seat, attention caught, head tilting to the side. Her skirt pulled a little tighter across her thighs, shadows catching in the purple, and Rick took a second to appreciate the view.

“No, why don’t you tell me? We can count it as a teaser for the book, and if that’s where your mind is today, I’m sure it will be easier to talk about that before proceeding with my questions.”

Rick nodded, suavely, he hoped. It seemed like nothing was working on this woman. Time to Don Juan it. “I am at your disposal, Ms. Morales,” he said, trying for debonair, but remembering at the last second to leave off the Spanish accent. Not everybody liked that part. “But I was wondering if, perhaps, Detective Heat should walk in to find Jameson Rook in a passionate embrace with a new character, a reporter. Say, a Catalina Torres!”

Karina Morales raised her eyebrow as Rick leaned in.

“Then, in the heat of the moment, she rips his- “ Castle stopped suddenly, unfairly cockblocked by Esposito slamming the door open.

“Castle, I’m going to have to - oh, hello there, ma’am,” Esposito said, all grace and courtesy with just a hint of lechery. “Detective Esposito, at your service.”

“Karina Morales, Vanity Fair. I’m just doing a piece on Mr. Castle, here, and he said now was the only time he could do it. Are we in your way? Mr. Castle was just about to describe a . . . climactic scene from his new novel.” Karina leaned back in her chair, comfortable and cool in a position that certainly displayed her attributes nicely. Esposito just boggled.

Okay, forget flirting with her, Rick thought. This woman scared the bejeesus out of him. She probably ate men bigger and better than him for breakfast. Any woman who could get Esposito to look like that was clearly some sort of secret supermodel-spy hybrid. She could probably kill him with her toenail clippers. She could probably kill him with her toenail!

“No, no. Uh, I was just, uh. I’m gonna,” Esposito hooked a thumb over his shoulder and disappeared, leaving Rick trapped in her super hot spy web. He hoped someone died soon so he could leave this room. Just, let it not be him.

“You were going to tell me about the scene from your latest Nikki Heat, weren’t you, Mr. Castle?” Karina said, smooth as a silk rope and twice as dangerous.

Rick coughed. “You know what, I think I remember what I was going to say before. About, um, why I started writing.”

Karina tilted her head predatorily and readied her pen. “Oh?” She said with a bloodthirsty look in her eyes.

Rick thought quickly. Good press, good press.

“Well, I spent a lot of time reading as a child. It was never the same book for me every night - my daughter always wanted me to read her Little House in the Big Woods. You know, Laura Ingalls Wilder?”

Karina nodded her supermodel-spy head. “It was one of my favorite books.”

Rick pulled on a smile. “Right! So, uh, I was never like that. I wanted a different book every night, and, uh, I always liked the newspaper and stories in general. Just stories,” he babbled. Oh god, he thought. Please, please let someone die soon.

“And how did this lead you to writing?” Karina prompted.

“There was the thing with my nanny, right. My nanny, who, she watched soap operas instead of me, and it gave me the plot for my first book. Which was terrible, obviously, as it was my first novel, but I like to think in the years since I’ve honed my craft. Like a blade. A giant, sharp, really really pointy blade,” he said, nervously eyeing the way she held her pen.

“But _In a Hail of Bullets_ won the Tom Straw Award. Do you really dislike your first novel that much?” she said, scenting a story like wolves scent fear.

“Oh, that wasn’t my actual first novel. That was the first one I finished, and the first one I published. And, actually, I got the plot the same way as well. But -” he stopped, mercifully interrupted by Beckett pushing open the door.

“I’m sorry to barge in like this, but I need Castle. We’ve got a crime scene to go over, and CSIs won’t wait much longer.” Beckett smiled, but her eyes were steel.

“Yes!” said Rick, fistpumping. Both women turned to stare at him.

“Did you just fistpump because someone died, Castle?” asked Beckett, half-amused, half-surprised.

“I, uh. No?” He tried.

“We’ll have to finish conducting this interview at another time, then,” Karina said, standing and smoothing her skirt. She slid her card across the table towards Rick, leaving it a scant two inches from his elbow. She was clearly intimating she was close enough to snap his neck.

“I think that would be best,” said Beckett.

Karina looked askance at him as she packed her things a little more quickly than previously. “In that case, I’ll just have someone from my office contact you to set up the second interview. Preferably somewhere public. Where there are people. Around. So. Goodbye.” With that, Karina Morales practically fled the room

“I don’t even want to know what you did to her,” Beckett said as she sailed out of the room.

“Nothing! I did nothing! She was the one who wanted to eat me alive - did you see that look on her face?” Rick said

“Castle, all I saw was a frightened woman trying to leave an interrogation room that you decided it would be ‘thematic’ to hold an interview in,” said Beckett.

“Scared? Scared? She was trying to kill me! Although, she did give me a great idea for a new scene in my latest Nikki Heat novel. Do you want to hear it?” said Rick.

Beckett rolled her eyes. “No, I don’t need to hear another of your fantasies-”

“Fantasies? You do a disservice to my profession, Detective. Now, lay on, MacDuff. I’ll tell you on the ride over.”

“Oh, god,” Beckett groaned. “What did I do to deserve this?”

“Must have been pretty spectacular,” Rick said, smugly.


End file.
